The patio, a pending subject

For ten years, the Fabra i Coats complex has had a nursery, two schools and a high school, with a total of 1,300 students who have had to deal with the noise of the construction work that is still going on. I worked there for four years. I also lived as a child opposite a high school and I know that it can be nerve-racking. But nothing compares to the flat I am in now: three dogs, a TV playing at full speed until late at night, a newborn baby and fans of experimental music. On some summer nights I have been tempted to go and beg them to turn down the music. And I could do it. What I cannot ask them is to change the record. Coexistence is about this, about time slots. Not about tastes. Because who says that what they hear is noise?

A The soundscape R. Murray explains that noise can be any sound considered undesirable and, therefore, is a subjective perception, which depends on cultural, psychological and environmental factors, with negative or positive impacts depending on how they are perceived and integrated into the sound environment. The problem comes when one tries to legislate with quantitative measures (decibels), because noise, says Murray, cannot be understood only in terms of volume, its annoyance also depends on qualitative factors (the timbre, frequency, duration and context). A repetitive and long-lasting mechanical sound is not the same as a very loud but sporadic sound. And it is not just a physical issue, there is an obvious social and emotional component. As we were saying, the music that bothers me is pleasant for my neighbours, and the crying of a baby is more stressful for its parents than for me. According to the author, the real challenge is not to reduce noise, but to design a more harmonious soundscape through architecture and urban planning and, above all, through auditory education. To teach how to listen to the environment, he says, citizen participation is necessary, to protect the characteristic sounds of a place as its intangible heritage, that is, the bells, the markets, the subway... I would add the schoolyards.

The playground is one of the few spaces of socialization where children learn to be and to be with other realities without the guidelines of the adult. In the playground you learn to play, shout, run, dance, sing, chat, or simply stop, rest, imagine... the limits are set by you. with others, and that you have every right to do so, but that it is not easy. That is also what coexistence is about, empathy, a muscle that we can exercise to make it more flexible. Precisely, the muscle that our children learn to use in the playground and that for many adults is a pending subject. If not, we would not consider entering the sad and scarce city playgrounds, cemented and surrounded by bars, to tell them that they make noise. It is the only place and time of day where we let them do it. If we forbid them, what are we teaching them? That they cannot let go, that they must conform and be quiet always and everywhere?

The movies Zero in conduct (J. Vigo) and The 400 Blows (F. Truffaut) are known for claiming that childhood needs air. It is impossible to forget the pillow fight on a night at boarding school or the child who stands in the middle of the night to see the sea and, looking at the camera, amazes us with his taste of freedom. Later, Dead Poets Society (P. Weir) encouraged us to tear out pages from textbooks to rebel against a strict and restrictive education system. With less glamour, documentary filmmaker F. Weisman filmed High School in 1968 and left everyone shaken. While a student revolt was taking place, that public school was proving authoritarian and alienating, prioritizing discipline over critical thinking. In 1994, High School II in an alternative school to show that another system, more participatory, inclusive and critical, was possible. Today, educational centers can be a parenthesis of the injustices and social inequalities that children experience at home or on the street, as we see in the working-class neighborhood ofToday it all begins (B. Tavernier), but also a place where one experiences a feeling of confinement and daily confrontation, as we see in the institute on the outskirts ofBetween the walls (L. Cantet). Fifty years have passed between Truffaut's film and Cantet's, but the sea and the air still seem far away.

Can you imagine eight hours of classes, lunch, naps and playground, five days a week, for ten years, with the rumble of construction work? Well, it's happening. And as if nothing happened. Because children make noise, but they don't protest, they don't vote. Maybe institutions can learn to listen to those who have no voice or vote. They have to listen to everyone, yes, and when faced with neighbours who complain about the noise in a playground, they must defend the schools and the rights of children. The right to education is the right to learn, but also to run and shout. The playground is just another subject, don't underestimate it from your offices.